


sitting on the edge (with my two best friends)

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Extreme Trigger Warning, Gen, Self Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, no beta we die like men, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 00:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Ronald Weasley is not okay. He wouldn’t tell you that if you asked, though.





	sitting on the edge (with my two best friends)

**Author's Note:**

> quick note: i am issuing an EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING for self harm, suicidal ideation, mentions of death, etc. This isn’t a nice fic. Please, if you think this may trigger you, don’t read it. also: this is unbeta’d and written while i’m not in a great mind frame; sorry for any mistakes in spelling/grammar etc.

Life was a mixed bag, these days. 

Sometimes, Ron would be stuck in bed, struggling to breathe through the tangible tension in his chest, through the sobs, through the pain. 

Other times, he could sit in the garden, help his mum cook, smile at everyone. 

Then, there were the Nothing Days. Ron has given them a name, see, because it’s much easier to pretend there’s not an issue with you if you give that issue a name and an identity. Those days are sometimes the worst days, and sometimes the best. They’re the days where he doesn’t feel- where he’s numb all over and where nothing matters anymore. He can still laugh, and smile, in those days, but it’s not the same. It’s a physical action that he makes happen; not a reaction. There’s a difference between imitation and the real deal. Still, if anybody sees that difference, they don’t comment. 

They’re nice, sometimes. Like breathing in the air after a rainstorm. After too long of feeling, of constant crying and screaming and hurting. It’s nice to be empty sometimes. 

But then they hurt, too. Because he sees his friends, sees his family, pulling together and smiling or aching or crying, and he can’t bring himself to feel anything. It’s like he shuts off for a bit. 

Sometimes he wants to turn off permanently. 

That feeling’s more prominent on Nothing Days, as well. Instead of a roaring in his head that hushes and fades, it’s an itch under his skin, a power coursing through his veins as if it’s as natural as his blood. 

“Just kill yourself,” it tells him. Constant and constant and constant and constant. 

It changes, sometimes. He’d be washing up (manually, because magic doesn’t feel the same anymore, and he’d heard it was soothing, once before). He’d see a knife, one of the big ones his mother keeps sharp for the rare occasion they have steak. He’d think about how easy it’d be to pocket it- Mum would never know, not until it’s too late. 

He does, sometimes, but it mostly ends back in the cutlery drawer by morning, unused. 

(Mostly.)

He’s taken to wearing longer shirts, as well. If anybody asks, he tells them it’s from the War- that he has scars and burns from fighting and fleeing and fearing. It feels dirty to say, especially when he remembers the marks on Hermione’s own arm.

(But the war has scarred him, left him tainted and broken. Left a ghost where there was once a boy.)

Today is a Nothing Day. He showers and brushes his teeth, heads downstairs and eats breakfast. He nods and smiles and laughs. He tells his mum that her cooking is amazing, that he’ll miss it when he goes back to school. 

Ron doesn’t actually know if he’s even going to go back, but it doesn’t hurt to act like he is. If nothing else, it means he can disappear for a year without anybody knowing. He could be long gone by then. 

Mum’s been so protective of him, since Fred. He wishes that it’d been him- he was close enough, anyway, and it wouldn’t have been as big a hurt if he’d been the one to go. Because there wasn’t Fred, there wasn’t George. There was FredandGeorge but now Fred’s gone and George is alone. 

He feels disgusting. Survivors guilt is one hell of a drug. 

He offers to clean up for his mum after breakfast. She thanks him, and busies herself again outside. She’s always busy, nowadays. There’s always an issue to be fixed. Ron thinks his mum would go insane if she ran out of things to distract herself with. It’s part of why he keeps his room messy, why he ‘forgets’ to do his chores. But she allows him this and she leaves and he’s alone in the kitchen. 

He has a favourite knife, which is fucked up. It’s small and sharp and has a nice dark brown handle. It’s made to look like wood, but it’s plastic. Easy to clean. It’s strange how familiar it feels. 

He takes it, puts it into his robe’s pocket, and then sets about washing up. It’s a numbing task. It’d probably be ideal for the bad data, but it’s not very good for the Nothing Days where numb it the default anyway.

His mum comes in at one point. She slices some vegetables- swears blind she’s missing a knife. Ron shrugs and tells her he’ll keep an eye out- maybe it got lost somewhere in the gap between cooking and washing, or wasn’t put away properly. 

He lets his hand rest on the outline of the knife a few times, as he works. It’s a quiet reassurance. 

Ron hasn’t heard from Harry or Hermione for a few days. He’s been owling them pretty consistently. They’ll ask him how he is, and he’ll reply with an easy, mundane answer: 

“Dreadful; Mum’s making is listen to Percy’s speech about safety again. Like, I already know all of it!”

or;

“Oh, I’m good. Ginny’s been helping me with the garden in the last few days, so there’s a lot less work to be done.”

The last thing he wants is for them to worry. They’ve both got their own issues, much worse than his. 

Sometimes, in his time with his knife, he thinks about them. Thinks about what they’d say if they saw him, if they knew. It doesn’t help him. But it can guilt him into stopping sometimes, so there’s that. 

(He doesn’t actually stop, because he continues pawing at the cuts for an hour afterwards, letting it bleed for a while before he actually bothers to get something to stop the bleeding.)

He’s buzzing for the rest of the day, in his own, strange way. The itch under his skin intensifies, becomes uncontrollable and wild and impossible to ignore. It demands blood and guts and gore. And it’s all he can do to indulge it. 

Nearing midnight, when he’s certain everybody’s in their rooms for the night, he sits down on the floor. It’s right where Harry would sleep, coincidentally, and that thought makes him feel less alone. 

The first cut is always the hardest. He has to work his way up before he can get to the good ones, the satisfying ones. They’re the ones and calm the itch a little, takes the edge off. 

They aren’t doing that tonight. Instead the Itch keeps Itching and Growing and demanding more more more. He obliges, pushes the knife deeper into his flesh until the blood is leaking out with far more ferocity than he’s used to. Still there’s the cry for more. 

He doesn’t register that he’s making noises, little gasps and hisses and heavy breaths. He’s too focused, intent on watching the blade tear through his skin and flesh and on watching the blood pour out. 

It feels like euphoria. 

His door opens at one point, he faintly registers. All he can hear is his pulse. 

Arms wrap around him, a body is pushed against him. It’s weird and feels like it’s happening to someone else, like he’s feeling a memory of a touch and not a real one. 

He turns his head and sees the crying face of his mother. 

The itch. Worsens. 

“Hi, Mom,” he whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a vent fic. Please always remember that there’s always people out there who love and care about you. People who don’t want you to die. People who will listen to you. Reach out.


End file.
